Resurgence
by auberus11
Summary: Methos, at the end of X2. Slash warning.
1. Chapter 1

**Resurgence**

They've been looking for Jean in the floodwaters of Alkali Lake for nearly half a day. Logan doesn't think they'll have any luck, especially given the haphazard way in which they're searching, but the raw anguish in Cyclops' face had been enough to persuade him to come along. There's no sign of Jean, of course.

What they _have_ found is half a dozen corpses in BDUs. At Cyclops' insistence, the bodies have been laid out at the waters' edge. Logan would have been happier to leave them for the scavengers, and the look in Storm's eyes as she reaches for the latest camouflage-clad corpse says clear as day that she feels much the same. When she pulls the body free of the submerged tree limbs holding it in place, though, she pauses, brow knitting in puzzlement.

"What is it?" Logan asks, casting a glance at the other boat, where Cyclops worked alone, mouth compressed into a grim line.

"This one has a mark on his neck, similar to the one left behind by the mind-control serum that Stryker developed."

"Huh. Maybe one of his guys wasn't on board with kidnapping children." He grabs the corpse's jacket and flips it over, cursing the awkwardness of the task. His first glimpse of the dead man's face nearly makes him lose his grip on the body, because this isn't a foot soldier -- it's Stryker's senior NCO, Lyman. Dead, the man looks younger than he had in life; all the sharp wariness has vanished from his angular features, now pale and still. The water has washed most of the blood away from his torn uniform, but the jagged tears and bullet-holes are still very much in evidence.

"This is Stryker's top subordinate," he explains, at the questioning look on Storm's face.

"That makes the mark on his neck even more unusual," she says, expression troubled. "I am tempted to take his body back for autopsy, to see if it is indeed from the serum."

A sudden spasm of movement in the water next to the boat, and a sharp tug on the jacket in his hand, pull Logan's attention abruptly back to Lyman's corpse -- except that Lyman's corpse is _moving_, eyes and mouth wide as he gasps for air. Logan automatically pulls the man's head and shoulders out of the water. After a second or two of frantic struggling, Lyman manages to get one pale hand onto the side of the boat.

Holding on so tightly that the knuckles of his long fingers turn white, he proceeds to cough up so much water that Logan finds himself wincing in reluctant, involuntary sympathy. By the time his breathing returns to anything remotely approaching normal, he's clinging to the side of the boat with both hands, his forehead pressed against the wood. His dark hair clings wetly to the startlingly fragile-looking nape of his neck; Logan can see the circular mark more clearly now, and it really does look like the one on the Professor's neck, though it seems to have scarred over -- from constant application?

Lyman finally lifts his head from the side of the boat, and looks at Logan's hand, still fisted in his jacket, before turning his gaze on Logan himself. Dimly, Logan can hear Storm calling for Scott, but Lyman's eyes are the same fathomless green as the waters of the lake, and his long, dark lashes are spiked together like stars. For a long moment, they stare at each other, Logan's gaze caught by Lyman's lips, which are slightly parted, and by the drops of water, sparkling and distinct, on his pale skin.

Then Lyman blinks, coughs again. Logan shakes himself, and Lyman asks: "Would you mind awfully if I begged a lift?"

The sly humour is as unexpected as the man's British accent, which as sharply cultured as the Professor's. There's no sense of threat coming off of him, though, and that - in combination with the mark on his neck - is enough to spur Logan into action. He shifts his grip to Lyman's elbows and pulls him bodily into the boat, Storm reaching over to help. Lyman collapses onto his back, water streaming from his torn and blood-stained clothing.

"Thank you," he rasps, struggling to a seated position.

"You might not want to thank us yet," Logan warns him. Lyman's eyes flick up to his, frightened and wary. There's nothing of the professional soldier about him now. Instead, he seems more like a college student playing dress up than anything else, out of his depth and over his head in more ways than one.

"Logan," Storm says, a slight note of reproof in her voice. Lyman turns to look at her. "You're a mutant, aren't you?" she asks him. When he doesn't answer, she reaches out a slender hand to touch the bullet holes in his shirt -- and the uninjured skin beneath it.

"You were dead," Logan says flatly.

"Full marks for observation," Lyman murmurs.

"Why did Stryker have a mutant on his team?" Logan ignores the smart remark. "Why were you working for him?"

One of Lyman's hands moves automatically to the scar on the back of his neck; the other clenches into a tight fist.

"It's not as though I was given a choice in the matter," he says acerbically; then Cyclops is there, staring at Lyman and demanding to know what's going on. Fortunately, Lyman's presence and clothing, and the hand on his neck, speak for themselves.

"We need to get him back to the Professor," Cyclops says, and that seems to be the cue for Lyman to try and bolt. He moves for the side of the boat and the water so fast that only his momentary hesitation before taking the plunge allows Logan to wrap an arm around his waist and drag him back. He keeps fighting, though, and eventually Logan has to put him out with a punch to the jaw.

* * *

_Notes__: This was started as commentfic in my livejournal for **zonya35**, and has taken on a life of its own.  
_


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

They have to sedate Lyman three times on the trip back to the school. Lyman apparently metabolizes drugs nearly twice as fast as Logan does, and every time he wakes up, he struggles violently and effectively to get free.

The Professor greets them at the door to the main part of the mansion, and directs them to the infirmary. It makes sense; Lyman did just spend the better part of the day dead -- but they have to sedate him again before Storm can cut the bloody BDUs off of him and replace them with a sheet.

Lyman's body is as well-muscled as is to be expected from a professional soldier. His arms and shoulders are particularly defined, and his hands are heavily callused. Storm draws blood, and then pauses, staring at Lyman's arm.

"What is it?" Logan asks. He and Cyclops are there in case Lyman gets violent; the Professor is there for reasons of his own that no one has asked about. Logan suspects curiosity.

"He heals even faster than you do," Storm says, with a speculative glance from Logan to Lyman and back again. "And, like you, he might very well be older than he appears. Both hands are heavily callused, but he has no scars anywhere -- unusual for a soldier -- except for the one on the back of his neck, and these." She lifts one of his shoulders; it takes a long second, but finally Logan notices the pale, even white lines along Lyman's back.

"Whip marks," he says, surprised by the hot swell of anger the realization generates. "Old ones. Still, if he heals like I do, there shouldn't be any scars at all."

"No, there shouldn't," Storm says, frowning slightly. She moves over to the table to perform her tests, while Logan stares down at Lyman. It seems clear enough that the man wasn't with Stryker by choice; the mark on his neck is proof of that. He can't help wondering if Lyman's story might be similar to his own, might help him answer some of the questions that wake him up at night, sweating. As he takes a step closer, he notices the Professor looking speculatively between the two of them, and deliberately starts running over a list of every kind of liquor he can think of. Alphabetically. He's getting much better at dealing with telepaths.

"This can't be right," Storm says.

"What?" Logan asks. The Professor is already frowning.

"He doesn't have the gene," Storm says.

"Then your test was wrong," Logan says flatly. "He came back from the dead, remember?"

"I saw it too," she snaps. "Nevertheless, the test was performed properly. The Sergeant is not a mutant."

As she pronounces the last word, Lyman bolts again. It catches Logan off guard -- he'd thought the man still unconscious -- and he's unprepared for Lyman's sudden explosion of movement, off the table and towards the door without the slightest regard for either his nakedness or the other people in the room.

"_Stop_!" the Professor shouts, backing it up with some sort of mental command; Lyman pauses mid-flight, but only momentarily; he shakes it off in less than a second and is moving again, without sparing a glance backward.

It is only this pause that allows Logan to reach him before he reaches the door, and he brings Lyman down with a flying tackle that earns him an elbow to the throat for his troubles. Fortunately, he outweighs Lyman by a significant amount; enough to wrestle him flat and put a fist against his chest.

"Hold still," he grits, "or I'll skewer you to the floor and we'll have this discussion once you've healed."

"Logan," the Professor says reprovingly. "Sergeant, calm down. No one here wishes to harm you."

Lyman goes limp beneath Logan's for a second; then he tenses again, and glares over Logan's shoulder with hate-filled green eyes.

"Stay the fuck out of my head," he snarls. Logan, looking back over his own shoulder, sees the Professor blink, looking startled.

"I apologize," he says gravely. Lyman stares at him for a long moment, then nods.

"You can get off of me now," he says, switching his gaze to Logan, who is suddenly aware for the first time that Lyman is naked beneath him. He rolls off in a hurry, and doesn't look in the Professor's direction. Lyman gets to his feet with an ease that proves he heals faster than Logan does, and walks calmly his way to the table, wrapping the sheet around himself without the slightest hint of embarrassment.

"Sergeant --" the Professor begins, but Lyman cuts him off.

"My name's Adam," he says, closing his eyes. "Adam Pierson." When he opens them again, the last traces of the competent, dangerous man of a few moments ago have vanished beneath the frightened kid Logan saw at the lake when Pierson revived. "I'm -- I _was_ a professor at the University of Seacouver."

Which begs the question again as to how old Pierson really is. Older than he looks, certainly, at least at the moment.

"What were you doing with Stryker?" Logan asks, ignoring the Professor's irritated glance. Pierson rubs at the back of his neck. It looks like an unconscious gesture.

"He kidnapped me. He found out what I can do, and..." He trails off, spreading his hands.

"And what is that, exactly," the Professor asks. "You're not a mutant." He's giving Pierson that look he has, the one that makes it feel like he's reading the back of your skull. Pierson looks away, rubbing the back of his neck again.

"I...heal," he says eventually. "From pretty much anything. I don't really know how I do it. I'm a history teacher, not a scientist."

"Ah," the Professor says. "Logan, Storm, would you excuse us, please?"

* * *

_Notes__: This was started as commentfic in my livejournal for **zonya35**, and has taken on a life of its own.  
_


	3. Chapter 3

**part three****:**

Cyclops apparently doesn't trust Pierson in the slightest, because he hovers outside the door the entire time that Pierson and the Professor are talking. He's close enough that Logan can't linger nearby and eavesdrop, much to the latter's disappointment. Logan settles for leaning nonchalantly against the opposite wall and aggravating Cyclops with his mere presence. For his part, he doesn't distrust Pierson any more than he distrusts anyone else; he's just...curious. Pierson is an interesting puzzle; a normal with mutant abilities, an ostensible professor with the eyes of a killer, a clever old man with the face of a student. 'Interesting' is an understatement.

Almost half an hour passes before Pierson and the Professor emerge, the latter looking as if Christmas has come early, the former dressed in a pair of scrubs and regarding the Professor warily.

"Excellent news," the Professor says before anyone else can speak. "Dr. Pierson has agreed to stay and teach history."

"What?!" Cyclops demands, face reddening behind his glasses. "Professor, you know what he was."

"I also know that decent people do not condemn a man for actions he was forced into taking more surely than if he'd had a gun to his head. Or would you condemn me for what I nearly did to every last person on the planet?" The Professor's voice is quiet, but it cuts through Cyclops' anger like a knife, and he subsides visibly.

"Of course not," he mutters. Apparently he knows better than to say 'that's a different story'. The Professor certainly won't see it that way. As far as Logan's concerned, if the Professor thinks someone's trustworthy after a half-hour's conversation, he probably is. There's no way that the Professor would offer a teaching position to a man whose mind he hadn't at least skimmed through.

"He'll be starting classes on Monday," the Professor continues, as if the interlude had never happened. "Logan, will you show him to a set of rooms please? I believe you'll find that the ones at the top of the stairs are empty. The keys will be under the fern in the living room." Pierson seems to relax slightly at that; at least, the tense line of his shoulders is starting to ease. Logan understands. The prospect of having a place of one's own is always a settling one, especially when you haven't had one in a while. The bit about the keys was a nice touch.

"Yeah, sure," Logan ignores Cyclops' suspicious look. The man clearly doesn't trust his sudden acquiescence. The Professor merely nods in satisfaction.

"Good. I've arranged to advance him a portion of his salary to satisfy any immediate requirements he might have; if you could be so kind as to accompany him to whatever stores he may need to visit?" _That's_ a look that Logan knows well. Apparently the Professor is worried that whatever remnants of Stryker's organization still exist might try to grab Pierson again.

"No problem. Come on, Pierson." The man looks startled at being addressed. "I'll even try and find you some clothes, so that you don't have to wear scrubs to the store." He heads off down the hall, Pierson behind him, before the Professor can start talking at him again. He hears Cyclops start up again as soon as the man thinks they're out of earshot.

"I don't understand how --"

Logan blocks him out, turning to look at Pierson instead. The man is still pale, but he doesn't look as much like death warmed over as he did when he first woke up, and his eyes are clear and steady.

"History, huh?" he asks, for lack of anything better to say. "Which era?"

"All of them," Pierson drawls. "Your Professor is remarkably good at talking people into things. I've agreed to teach each grade a different time period."

"That should be fun," Logan says dryly. He himself has avoided teaching any classes at all. Kids are not really his thing.

Pierson shrugs. "It's been a long time since I've taught anything but college. It'll be a change." He makes no mention of what he's getting in exchange, beyond a salary, but Logan is willing to bet that he's getting something. Protection, if nothing else.

Pierson takes the stairs easily enough -- his residual aches and pains must vanish as completely as do Logan's -- and when Logan opens the door to his rooms, steps inside cautiously, looking around like a man expecting an attack at any moment.

"I'll go and find those clothes I mentioned," Logan says. "You need a shower before we go out in public."

"Tactful," Pierson murmurs.

"That's a waste of time." Logan shrugs. "I say what needs saying."

"Apparently." Those green-hazel eyes are watching him now, as carefully as they'd watched the Professor earlier. It makes Logan a little uncomfortable.

"Anyway," he says, shifting from one foot to the other, "I'll leave them outside your door. Come find me when you're dressed; I'm two doors down from you."

Pierson nods and closes the door without further comment. Logan waits until he hears the lock engage before heading off to find jeans and a t-shirt that will fit the man. He's willing to bet that Pierson's first move was towards that fern in the living room, to get the keys the Professor mentioned. In Pierson's place, he'd have done the same thing.

* * *

Methos slips the lock on the door and leans against it for a long moment before crossing to the aforementioned fern and removing the keys from underneath it. Xavier is certain to have copies somewhere, but for now Methos has security and privacy and the illusion of inviolability, and that will certainly do.

The rooms are simply and elegantly appointed, the furniture heavy oak and handmade. Methos takes a few minutes to open drawers and cabinets, and to note the lack of a kitchen -- meals, then, will be communal -- before going into the bathroom, stripping off his scrubs as he goes.

For a moment he balks in front of the shower as the memory of drowning seizes his lungs. Shaking it off, he forces himself to turn on the water and step beneath the spray, and in moments is luxuriating in the warmth; in rinsing off the silt and blood of one of the most disastrous episodes of his life.

It had started innocently enough, with a civilian job at the Department of Defense for his newest identity. That job had led to a meeting with William Stryker over a piece of bureaucratic trivia that Methos can no longer recall; they'd done lunch, and Methos had broken his water glass. He remembers reaching for the broken pieces, remembers the sharp sting of injured skin, and wrapping his hand as quickly as he could after Stryker noticed the blood, hoping that the colonel's sharp eyes hadn't noticed the lack of wound beneath it. He hadn't known for sure that he'd been found out until that evening, when a different sort of sting had heralded the precipitate arrival of a tranquilizer dart in his left arm. When he'd woken up, he'd been ready to do what he was told.

Shuddering, he pushes his face into the water, washing away what he can of those memories, letting them fade into colourless shades of themselves. It's an old trick, and a vital one; it helps keep him from collecting phobia after phobia along with his memories of particularly nasty deaths. He takes his time in the shower, letting the hot water banish the phantom aches that are his only reminders of the injuries he'd taken on his way to freedom before he bothers to reach for the shampoo and conditioner that have been so thoughtfully provided for him. Xavier's idea of hospitality is very close to the hospitality he has given and received for most of his life. That thought summons another set of memories, most of them pleasant, and Methos lets his mind take him back to one particular evening in Rome while he rinses the soap out of his hair.

Afterwards, he towels himself off and goes to see if Logan managed to find him any clothing. Piled neatly outside his door are a pair of jeans that are only a little too loose and a black t-shirt that fits well enough. There are a pair of flip-flops as well, and Methos slips into them ruefully. Swordless -- at least for the moment -- and wearing flip-flops. Logan had better be as effective a bodyguard as Xavier had promised.

* * *

_Notes__: Thanks to lferion for being the second pair of eyes for this thing. Feedback is, as always, a welcome event._

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End file.
